The Martian (2015) space ship

Direct Beam Comms #13

TV

Hap and Leonard

For being a six-episode series, Hap and Leonard on Sundance Channel sure moves slow. Starring James Purefoy (John Carter), Michael K. Williams (Boardwalk Empire) and Christina Hendricks (Firefly), Hap and Leonard takes place in a deep south 1988 where Hap and Leonard prodded by Hap’s old girlfriend go looking for one million dollars supposedly at the bottom of a river lost after an accident from a 20 year old bank robbery.

The story is interesting enough and comes off as Elmore Leonard-lite. But it’s the pace that seems slow and off in the first episode. I mean, the story is about these people trying to find this lost money, yet all that really happens in the first episode are the introduction of this diverse and unique set of characters and that’s about it.

It’s like the story is primed and ready to go, only you’ll wait until the next episode to see how the story starts. B-

Movies

The Martian

Matt Damon in The Martian

The Martian is a good movie, maybe even a great sci-fi film. It’s essentially an update of the classic Robinson Crusoe story of a man marooned all alone on a hostile environment. But the twist here is that the man Mark Watney (Matt Damon) isn’t just marooned on an island, he’s marooned and is alone on the planet Mars and must use all his skills and whatever’s at hand to survive.

The Martian is kind’a sort’a a “last man” story except instead of being the last man on Earth, he’s The Last Man on Mars.

The Martian is an exciting flick from start to finish. From an opening storm that forces an astronaut explorer evacuation of Mars for everyone else, and looks a lot like the storm from the movie Prometheus which was also directed by Ridley Scott, to Watney’s eventual escape from the red planet are all work very well. If there’s one thing in the movie that I didn’t really buy it’s that in all the action of The Martian from engineers on Earth rushing a Mars bound supply launch to the crew that abandoned Mark flying to the Earth then back to Mars to attempt a rescue to Mark being stuck on Mars for over a year, stabbed once and blown up twice — that (huge spoiler alert) everyone lives to the end and no one dies even after taking all these gigantic risks is a bit of a stretch. A-